Wednesday, July 31, 2013

this is Sparta

Last week, Jon ran the Super Spartan race somewhere in the middle of Illinois. No training. Just sheer will. I was convinced he was going to break a bone, or worse, and spent the day worrying.

However, during the 8plus-mile course, he completed every endurance task--climbing walls, dragging cement blocks, crawling through mud, scaling a wall and ringing a bell--except the one where he had to pull a rope tied to a weight nearly as heavy as he is and lift it 30 feet. All while covered in a thick layer of mud. And he emerged with little more than a bruise and a couple scratches to show for it. Jon was disappointed; he'd been hoping to show off more legitimate battle wounds.

The next day he threw all the fancy wick-away-moisture clothes (including underwear and socks), his commemorative shirt and a towel he's had since college into the wash in our apartment building's community laundry room. It wasn't even half a load. He forgot about it.

Later that night, when we came back from our near-nightly walk, he remembered his gear and went to grab it, expecting it to be on the table or even the floor. It wasn't there at all.

He was so sad. I immediately got angry and started stomping around. We've lived here three years, and while some people around this complex look a bit shady, they're all probably decent people. I started imagining the pain in the butt it would be to do laundry at my parents' house and planned to amp up our house hunting so we didn't have to live in a place where someone would take your (albeit clean) underwear. Then I remembered there was a family doing tons of laundry when I came home from work that day, so I decided to believe Jon's stuff got collected with theirs and it was all just an oversight.

So I taped this sign to the laundry room door:

I forgot to add the headband with his race number on it.

We spent the day shaking our heads, sad that someone in our little community would take his clothes, and bummed that neither of us really got a look at the congratulatory Super Spartan Race tshirt he'd gotten at the finish line. At least he still had his medal.

But then!

He got back everything but the headband (not pictured, underoos and socks).

Madelyn found the stuff but the headband on the folding table two days later. All is right in Sparta.